Verato appoints Clay Ritchey as CEO
Verato announced that effective April 30, 2021, Clay Ritchey has been appointed as the Company’s Chief Executive Officer. He succeeds Mark LaRow who is retiring to the company’s Board of Directors after serving as CEO of Verato since January of 2015. LaRow’s retirement has been planned since the fall of 2019.
“We are pleased to welcome Clay to Verato. After an extensive search process, we feel fortunate to have found someone with Clay’s successful experience in healthcare and software-as-a-service (SaaS). We are confident that, under Clay’s leadership, Verato will further its mission to help transform the landscape of healthcare with more complete and trusted patient information,” LaRow said.
“It’s been an incredible six years at Verato, and I’m proud to have witnessed and been a part of its dramatic growth in that time. With a strong foundation in place, I know the team will continue to succeed for many years to come.”
Ritchey brings a wealth of expertise and experience to the Verato CEO role, having served in a number of senior leadership capacities over the last three decades across the healthcare and technology/software space.
He most recently served as CEO of Evariant, a healthcare SaaS CRM and big data analytics company, propelling hyper growth of the organization and leading them to a successful merger with Healthgrades in January 2020.
Ritchey’s prior roles also include Chief Marketing Officer at Imprivata, CEO at Maryland-based Equinox Healthcare, and Vice President of Marketing and Strategy at Hill-Rom IT Solutions. Ritchey received his MBA from Harvard Business School and his BSEE, with Highest Distinction, from The Pennsylvania State University.
“I truly believe that Verato’s unique referential identity matching technology is a critical linchpin in the healthcare digital transformation journey,” said Ritchey. “Having a trusted one-to-one match between patient identities and their digital health information is seminal to achieving the promise of the digital healthcare revolution that is upon us.”
Continued Ritchey, “I look forward to leading Verato through their next phase of rapid growth by doubling down on our commitment to customer success and innovation by serving our amazing customers across the care continuum, from healthcare providers, payers, life sciences, healthcare IT companies and government organizations.”
Verato’s next-generation enterprise master person index (EMPI) solution integrates patient data collected across the healthcare system and beyond, to provide a complete and trusted picture of each individual.
Its cloud-native technology allows client organizations to integrate their solutions for CRM, analytics, clinical, and digital experience faster and with lower overall cost than any other technology.
“Verato has continued to rapidly scale its business and operations while delivering over 50 percent annualized growth over the last three years,” commented board member and investor Kent Bennent, partner at Bessemer Venture Partners.
“We are grateful for Mark’s leadership and are excited for the baton to be passed to Clay for the next phase of company growth and innovation.”